HARTFORD – Connecticut hospitals have spent more than $5 million on preparations to deal with possible Ebola patients, lawmakers were told Monday.

The good news is that federal health officials are giving Connecticut hospitals high marks for their plans and training to handle Ebola patients. Dr. Matt Cartter, state epidemiologist, also said the public should know that "the risk of an Ebola outbreak in Connecticut is extremely low."

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But experts warned at a legislative forum that hospital expenditures could soar far beyond what's been spent if an Ebola case is discovered. Federal funding is available to reimburse hospitals for some emergency preparedness costs, state officials said.

Federal funding for the hospital preparedness program was cut by 37 percent last year, according to Department of Public Health spokesman William Gerrish. For the current federal fiscal year, Connecticut has $2.7 million to reimburse hospitals for Ebola-related expenses.

Lawmakers were also told of potential problems securing enough personal protective equipment for medical workers if an Ebola case occurs.

A spokesman for Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam said that, although the hospital is capable of safely identifying, isolating and providing initial care for an Ebola patient, dealing with an Ebola patient in the long term would shut down the hospital because of the costs involved.

"The effect on our hospital would be devastating from a financial point of view," Dr. John Graham, Day Kimball's chief medical officer, told the public health committee. He said there is no plan outlining where an Ebola patient admitted to Day Kimball could be transferred for long-term care.

"Our first call would be to the state Department of Public Health," Graham said, adding that major hospitals such Hartford Hospital and Yale-New Haven Hospital are equipped to provide such care.

The forum at the Legislative Office Building came after a man who had traveled to Liberia was admitted to Griffin Hospital in Derby on Saturday.

Hospital officials said they activated their Ebola isolation procedures because the patient had been in Liberia last week, but tests showed the man did not have Ebola symptoms.

"We determined that he was no longer considered an elevated risk," hospital spokesman Ken Roberts said. The patient was transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital for treatment Sunday afternoon, Roberts said.

Anyone arriving in the U.S. from West African countries with Ebola cases — including Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Mali — is being screened and Connecticut officials are notified if any of those people are state residents. Nearly 16,000 suspected Ebola cases have been identified in those countries, and Ebola deaths from the outbreak now total about 6,000, said Dr. Paul R. Skolnik, chairman of medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Cartter said that 33 people in Connecticut have been identified as having traveled recently to West Africa.

Nine of those people were given quarantine orders by the state, Cartter said. None was found to have the Ebola virus, and state officials have tracked all those travelers to West Africa until they were cleared of having Ebola.

One individual agreed to a voluntary travel ban and the state is still monitoring 12 people considered at risk for developing the disease, Cartter said.

Ebola has an incubation period of two to 21 days, and most cases are discovered within eight to 10 days of exposure. Health experts said this strain of the Ebola virus can be transmitted only through broken skin or mucus membranes that come in contact with a victim's bodily fluids such as blood, tears, saliva, urine and feces. The virus can't be transmitted through the air.

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Hospital and state health officials detailed the plans, programs and emergency drills that have been put in place in the past three months to deal with potential Ebola patients.

"Lately, my job is all-Ebola all the time," said Dr. Victor Morris, Yale-New Haven's vice president for physician and patient access services.

Staff time for planning and training, modifications to isolation facilities and purchases of personal protective equipment and other equipment are straining hospital budgets, officials said. "It is extraordinarily expensive," Skolnick said.

Brian Cournoyer, director of government relations for the Connecticut Hospital Association, said his organization's survey of Ebola-related hospital expenditures indicated that more than $5 million has been spent.

That includes $1.1 million for protective gear, $2 million for staff education and training, and $1.4 million for capital improvements to hospitals, Cournoyer said.

Several officials said that available supplies of protective gear are potentially limited. Dr. Louise-Marie Dembry, associate director and hospital epidemiology and professor of medicine at Yale-New Haven, said simply training staff in how to put on and take off personal protective gear uses up lots of kits.

Morris pointed out that a single Ebola patient would require the use of 50 protective kits a day to protect the doctors and nurses taking care of the patient.